The Western U.S. could reap huge benefits in pollution savings and reduced spending on fossil fuels by installing more wind and solar power plants, according to a comprehensive new analysis released today by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). The study found that obtaining 25 percent of electricity in the Western U.S. from renewable energy will reduce carbon dioxide pollution by up to 34 percent and save $7 billion annually in fossil fuel costs.

Earlier this week at the REFF West conference, I attended the “Balancing act between natural gas and renewables” panel. Surprisingly the panel focused very little on the worries that cheap natural gas would derail the renewables market, but instead explored the synergies available between the two.

September 30 -- The Western U.S. could reap huge benefits in pollution savings and reduced spending on fossil fuels by installing more wind and solar power plants, according to a comprehensive new analysis released today by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). The study found that obtaining 25 percent of electricity in the Western U.S. from renewable energy will reduce carbon dioxide pollution by up to 34 percent and save $7 billion annually in fossil fuel costs. The NREL report also conclusively puts to rest the fossil fuel industry myth that wind energy’s pollution savings are smaller than expected because fossil-fired power plants run at lower efficiency when wind is generating electricity. Even at the very high level of renewable energy use examined in the report, the impact on the efficiency of fossil-fired power plants was found to be “negligible,” reducing the carbon emissions reduction benefits of wind and solar by only 0.2 percent, so that on net wind and solar produced 99.8 percent of the expected emissions savings. >>View Article

April 10 -- NREL has launched an initiative to build an open-source database from solar facilities across the country, giving the private market tools to develop investment vehicles to tap low-cost public capital. >>View Article

December 6 -- US electrics company GE is to team up with the Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University (Virginia Tech) and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) to develop advanced wind turbine blade technology that could put wind energy on an equal economic footing with fossil fuels, GE have announced. >>View Article

November 29 -- The U.S. Department of Energy on Wednesday offered its version of the winning lottery numbers, naming four Colorado-based research projects that will get more than $4 million in grants from the agency’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) program. >>View Article